Firethorn (59 page)

“Nothing. Just a dream.” I lied, for it was not merely a dream, it was a true dream. I knew it by its reek of smoke and flesh burning.

Galan was right, I wasn't fit for war. That he was—was frightening.

Nor did I consider leaving Galan and taking the peace he offered when one of the priests'varlets came running to the Crux's tent in the morning to give him the news: Sire Rodela had died sometime in the night, choking on his own spew.

Divine Xyster had gagged Rodela and the Crux had told him to, and they didn't disown the blame but neither did they linger over it. The blame that was mine I kept to myself. I had expected to be glad when he died, but I wasn't glad, only a little less afraid.

No one forbade me to follow when they took Sire Rodela to his pyre on the charnel grounds at the edge of the sea cliff. The wood had been bought at great price and drenched with oil so it would go up quickly, as Rodela was likely to have a restless shade.

The Crux poured a libation for him, but all he'd say in his praise was that he was a brave man. Galan wouldn't give one word to his shade, and for a libation he spat on the ground. He stalked away, and left me there by Rodela's pyre.

Nearby the dead drudges were burning. The bodies had been laid two deep in a long row, and piled with sea hay and gorse and thistles gathered from leagues around. There was no wood to squander on mudfolk. They'd been burning since yesterday. With such poor fuel the pyres would not burn hot, so they needs must burn long. When rigor had overtaken the dead, some had been caught in awkward gestures, an arm upraised, legs akimbo, head twisted. Now they shifted under a blanket of ash.

I held the end of my headcloth over my nose against the stench. Cook, who stayed to tend Rodela's pyre after the others had gone, said he'd seen and smelt worse in his years of going to war, and he told me, for kindness, that I should hie off home before I learned what he meant. I shook my head.

When no one was watching, I threw the scrap of flesh and hair Rodela had stolen from me—which I'd stolen back—on his pyre, so the smoke would carry my words to his shade: while fire gnawed his flesh and cracked his bones to get at the marrow, I told him under my breath how I'd killed him. I didn't regret his murder. Perhaps remorse would come to me when I died, and my shade would have to bear it.

But I swore to myself that if ever I had cause to kill again, it would not be by a slow and chancy poison.

It was when I turned my back on the pyres and the sea, and came down into the clamor and commotion of the Marchfield, all stirred up by news of the war's imminence—walking alone, as I hadn't walked for many tennights, and any man who dared to hoot at me or reach for me got a look that reminded him sharp to mend his manners—and how and when had I come by that look?—it was then I knew that no matter how I denied it, I was tempted by thoughts of an aerie for myself alone, a garden, the Athlewood, which carried such a welcome-sounding name.

I went to the tents of the clan of Delve, seeking Mai, and I found her sitting on a boulder with her back to the Sun. The day was cold but the Sun was warm. Tobe pulled on the piebald dog's tail, the dog whined and bared his teeth, and Sunup picked Tobe up and sat him down not far away, and he began to whine too.

I didn't like the look of Mai's face: her wattles hung too slack, as if she'd lost substance, her skin was a shade too gray. Her feet were so swollen she'd given up wearing shoes. “Are you well?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “I'm just tired, always tired. Too much to do.”

Horses'bardings and caparisons, sacks and casks and bundles were heaped and strewn about the yard, and more provisions coming in carts and on backs, and varlets bustled everywhere, most at cross-purposes and cross besides.

“And you?” Mai said.

“Oh, what shall I do? Sire Galan means to send me home—he's given me a house, some land—he gave it before the Crux and all and they put it in the Landsbook.”

“Do? Why go, I suppose.” She spoke offhand, but the look in her black eyes was not altogether amiable.

“I can't go—you know why—even if I wanted to.”

“What do you mean?”

“The binding, of course.”

“Oh, child, sit down, sit down!” she said.

I sat down beside her, both of us with our backs to the Sun. Her bulk cast a great shadow and mine a little one, and when I leaned toward her, the shadows merged.

“You said there was no way to undo it, Mai, and no way to bind one without the other, but the Crux found a way to free Galan, and I'm still bound, and how can I bear it?”

“Oh, indeed? How did the Crux do such a thing?”

I whispered, “The Initiates of Carnal.”

Mai laughed. “Balderdash!” It was a hard, mocking laugh and I took it hard.

Sire Torosus came out of his tent, squinting in the sun, the crow tracks gathering at the corners of his eyes. He smiled at Mai and nodded at me, and strode off, shouting at one of his men, “No, not that one! Use this one!” He came to Tobe sitting in the yard and stooped over him. “Well, little man, what's the fuss?” he asked, and Tobe squealed and crawled away as fast as he could, and they had a chase. Sire Torosus pounced and snatched him up and swung him this way and that until Tobe screamed with delight. When he put him down, Tobe waddled after him. If Tobe lived to be a lad, would his father keep him close, have him serve at table, clap him on his shoulder and say with pride his son would make a fine man? Or would Sire Torosus grow distant, set his mudboy to herding sheep on a mountain suitably far away?

Tobe trusted his father's affection—he was too young to know better. But Mai trusted too, and she was no innocent. When I set out to be a sheath, I thought it was all between a man and his woman, for a campaign or two; I never expected to see a family.

Mai laughed at me, so sure of herself that she teased me for doubting. I envied her certainty.

She turned to me and said, “Listen, I told you about the binding that day because you needed something to ease your mind. I told you it couldn't be undone so you'd believe in its potency, and belief would give you strength. I didn't know you then. I didn't know what you could do.”

“So it can be undone?”

“If it can be done at all, surely it can be undone.”

“Why do you speak in riddles? Answer me plain—how can I undo it?”

“Dig her up and cut the cord and burn her,” Mai said. “That might work.”

“Might?”

She shrugged. “Well, you're a cannywoman, after all. I don't know quite what you did when you made the binding. If you managed to twine your lives together in her, there may be no way to tease those strands apart gently; and if they are severed that might harm the both of you. Or you might cut them, only to find that something more holds you two together.“ “

Maybe, might, maybe. I'm no canny and you know it.”

“Aren't you? What do you suppose a canny is, then?”

“You are, for one.” But it had been easier to deny when the Crux had said it. Uncanny
—that
I could own. Ardor had given me strange gifts: I could see by shadows, travel by shade, I could draw fire and give warmth. But shouldn't a canny be knowing, be shrewd? I blundered my way forward; what use to see in the dark if I didn't know where to go?

Mai only grinned. But soon the grin turned sour. “So he means to send you home.”

“Yes—with his horses. He's putting us all out to pasture until he comes back.”

She gestured around her, as if to compass the whole Marchfield. “How many of us will come back? Not above half, I'd say. Take his gift and thank him for saving your life—that's what I'd do.”

“Would you truly leave Sire Torosus?”

“I would. This time I would.” She shifted on her buttocks and sighed. “Every day I feel my travails coming closer, and I'm worn out dreading it. You'd think having birthed nine living children, praise the gods, it would come easier. But this boy has a lot of Mischief in him.”

“Now the envy was on her part, and pity on mine. I'd seen fear in her eyes before, but never so bare.

She said, “I'll miss you when the time comes.”

“I mean to make Sire Galan change his mind,” I said.

“By Hazard, you have all the luck! Why do you kick against it? I shook my head. I couldn't say why. Now I saw myself going to a place I'd never seen but that already sounded like home. And on the way we'd stop by the river to camp, and I'd leave the fire to go threading through the bogs in the dark to find that place where I'd buried the womandrake root—if it could be found, I'd find it, for I always knew where I was, even when the Sun was down. I'd build a pyre for her and light it with a coal from my fire pouch. I'd burn it all up, that tangled, knotted snarl that trammeled us both. And when—if—Sire Galan rode up to the house on the mountain, he'd be surprised to find me cooler than was my wont.

I felt then as if I were burning, blood ablaze in my veins like oil in a lamp, shining through my skin. I clasped my knees and bent my head and rocked, and when tears fell the drops seared my cheeks and arms.

“It's hard,” Mai said. “I know it's hard, my dear. If you must leave, godspeed. And if you come with the army—whether Sire Galan forbids you or no—you can always stay with us. We'll make you welcome.”

Sunup, who'd been listening as she always did, without appearing to, came over and leaned on me, saying, “Yes, stay with us! Please!”

And at that I cried some more.

I'd let a day pass, and if it was the last day, I'd wasted it. There was not such a bustle among our tents as in the tents of Delve, but rather stealthy preparations. Tomorrow they'd leave the tents standing, the baggage half packed, the horses in the corral, and go unheralded. They were taking only arms, armor, and scant provisions. Jacks wrapped the armor tightly against the sea spray and salt air. They'd be three or four days crossing if the wind held. They'd all fight afoot in the coming battle, cataphracts, armigers, and jacks, even the Crux himself, for they'd fight within walls.

If it was the last day … I stood on a narrow knife edge and never before had I seen the world divided so starkly between one side of a blade and another. For when I'd left with Galan to be his sheath, I'd known less than I knew now.

Az had read the bones for me then, and the Dame and Na had been cryptic, or so I'd thought. But the Dame had warned of aimless wandering, that I might be swept away in flood—which was war, surely—and yet told me I might discover in that flood a wellspring, if I had the resolution for it; and Na, hadn't she warned me of a prison, which might be that stone house on the mountain, and of the shackles with which I'd bound myself and Galan?—unless I made of that prison a shelter, unless the binding rooted us, one in the other, gave us the strength to withstand flood and all.

The pouch Az had given me had burned with the tent, but I still had the bones, which I'd stitched into a seam in my kirtle. I rubbed them through the cloth. I could prick out those stitches, cast the bones on the ground, ask again. But what more would they say than what they'd already said? They'd been freer with their advice when they were alive, those two. And I was smitten with grief for a moment, missing them as they were when their bones had been girded about with flesh, missing their dear faces, their hands always busying about, and how they spoke their minds, their minds full of twists and turns and hidden places, so that even knowing them both so well, they surprised me daily. Our shades are but a revenant of all that; even if they are the better part of us, they are only part, and it doesn't suffice the living to know they go on when the rest is ash.

And what did Ardor have to say to me, that god who'd singled me out? Ardor, like all gods, was triple, and spoke contradictions. But I had only two hands, there were two sides to the blade: on the one was a stone hearth holding the Hearthkeeper's fire, and me burning beside it, consumed with unquenchable longing. On the other, war: war as a furnace in which Sire Galan, an army, a kingdom, would be melted down and reforged, and I might be alloyed in that crucible, and between the Smith's hammer and anvil made part of something new, or I might be dross, burned away as ash or spilled as dull slag on the furnace floor; or war as Wildfire born in lightning or careless spark, free of any man's control, devouring keeps and cities, man, woman, child, and Galan and me, insatiable, until there was nothing left to gnaw but coals. Ardor said all these things, and as to what the god would have me do, said nothing.

The priests tell us—when we are beset by calamities—that everything happens by the will of the gods. They mean to comfort us, but it was no comfort to me. Why then do the gods keep us ignorant of their purposes? Why must we stumble, err, go astray? That too is their purpose, the priests say. But they don't say why.

They'd go tomorrow with the changing tide. Every day the tides rose and fell and yet I'd failed to mark the time of their passage. I'd learned the land: the dun folds of the hills, the sloughs and hummocks, the crumbling cliffs, the running and standing waters, even the tide pools and the pebbled shore; I knew where jillybells flourished and a lonesome beech had rooted in a cranny. But I when the tide went out. I'd turned my back on the sea, not wanting to think of what lay on the other side.